AbstractOne main purpose for the use of formal description techniques (FDTs) is formal reasoningand verification. This requires a formal calculus and a suitable formal semantics of theFDT. In this paper, we discuss the basic verification requirements for Estelle, and howthey can be supported by existing calculi. This leads us to the redefinition of the stanADdard Estelle semantics using Lamport's temporal logic of actions and Dijkstra's predicatetransformers.